Nick style larding follows:
On Thu, Dec 12, 2019, at 5:15 AM, Eric Charles wrote: > I think the effableness is a red herring. "Last night I ate spaghetti" > doesn't fully and completely explain exactly what happened last night... but > we all agree that I used words to describe a thing that is not "ineffable". > So far, no argument has been offered to demonstrate that Dave's conversation > with God is any more or less effable than my having eaten spaghetti > > **[DW-->in the case of speaking with God, I completely agree with you. In the > second example, I was at least attempting to depict an 'X' that was truly > ineffable, in that even asserting a label like 'Experience' is falsehood. I > will leave that for another time and consider your other comments. <---dw]** > > > Absent an argument to that effect, we are begging the question by taking it > as given that the two differ. I think the more interesting issue that Dave's > example brings up is our original issue regarding monism, in its relation to > the question "what is real?" > > **[DW -->May I restate as a question of what criteria are sufficient to > assert that something is not real? In a previous post you asserted that > something is not real if it has no "effects;" and you seem to reiterate that > assertion in your remarks about a Deist god having no current effects. Are > "effects" the criteria, and if so how do we utilize them to determine the > reality of 'X'? <-- dw]** > > We all agree that that Dave could have been having a conversation with > something real or something not real, right? We can call the other option > "imaginary" or "illusory" or whatever else we want to call it, but we > recognize that people sometimes have conversations with those types of > conversational partners, so it is a live possibility. > > I said in prior emails, we are in-particular talking about "monism" in > contrast to mind-matter dualism (and all variants of that particular > dualism), meaning that we reject that mental things and matter things are > made of two different stuffs. > > **[DW -->This is a key point that I would really appreciate a good monist to > explain to me. Using a metaphor of a computer, there seems to be one kind of > "stuff," the ones and zeros (high and low voltages) flowing about a set of > circuits. But, any given sequence of ones and zeros can 'effect' a given > state of the collective circuitry, and any given sequence of states can > effect more comprehensible constructs like the screensaver of Bears Ears that > appears behind this email window. The graphic is, of course, but ones and > zeros. Ones and zeros is the "stuff" of all. What status have the > "constructs" up to and including the images and icons? <--dw]** > > So Dave is talking to God. Whether he is talking to something that is > "mental" or something "physical" is a post-hoc judgement. That is, we > discover that based on future experience, not based on the initial > experience, which is neutral with regards to that distinction. What later > experiences will allow us to determine if the conversational partner is real? > That is hard to specify when we are discussing a deity with ambiguous > properties, but the method must be in principle very similar to how we would > confirm or reject the reality of any other conversational partner. How do you > determine when a child has an imaginary friend versus a real friend? You look > for other consequences of the conversational partner. Ultimately we look for > convergent agreement by anyone who honestly inquires into the existence of > the conversational partner (i.e., the long term convergence / > pattern-stability, referenced earlier in the conversation). > > **[DW -->I would argue that we have a body of precisely this kind of > evidence, convergent agreement/pattern-stability, with regard "honest > inquiries." I make this assertion with regard "goddness" but would make it > emphatically with regard the "mystical otherness." That evidence does not, > however, seem to result in the assignation of "Real" status. So something > else must be in play. What? <--dw]** > > The only thing we can't allow - because it is internally incoherent - is for > there to exist a "real" thing with "no consequences" that we could > investigate. So the "Deist" God, the instigator with no current effects, is > off the table a priori, because that is a description of a thing that doesn't > exist --- and also because Dave couldn't have had a conversation with that. > We could only be discussing a conception of God that can be interacted with > to certain ends, which means that some tractable means of converging opinions > one way or the other is possible. > > **[DW -->Whose opinions? Those on the FRIAM list? The public at large? > Something akin to the "scientific community?" If the latter, why do not > alchemists — in the general sense of the term, not the lead into gold > caricature subset — constitute such a body? <--dw]** > > As such: Dave's conversation with God is not in-kind difference from John's > seeing a bear in the woods: Both are equally effable/ineffable. Both have the > same question about the reality of the thing experienced. Both can be > subjected to the same types of analyses (I offered Peircian, Jamesian, or > Holtian options regarding the bear). > > > ----------- > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist > American University - Adjunct Instructor > <mailto:[email protected]> > > > On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 3:17 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <[email protected]> wrote: >> The thing being left out of this still seems, to me, to be constructive vs >> ... what? ... analytical explanation. Your larger document beats around that >> bush quite a bit, I think. But I don't think it ever names/tackles the point >> explicitly. >> >> When you say things like "explanations are based on prior explanations" and >> "depends on the understandings that exist between speaker and audience", >> you're leaving out THE fundamental ontology atop which it's all built ... >> the building of the experimental apparatus. Feynman's pithy aphorism >> applies: What I cannot create, I do not understand. >> >> Explanations facilitate replication. They tell you *how* to do the trick >> yourself. Descriptions can be explanatory, of course. But they can also be >> non-explanatory. And some explanations are more facilitating than others. >> (E.g. I can write out some obtuse math and print it on paper or I can hand >> you a floppy disk with some Matlab code on it.) >> >> But the foundation is that we all have the same basic hardware. And >> *that's* what explanations are built upon. Change the hardware and your >> explanation becomes mere description. ... E.g. take a big hit of LSD and >> many explanations become mere descriptions. The evolutionary biological >> content of your paper (as well as Figure 1.2[†]) seems like it's just crying >> out for something like "construction". Reading it feels like watching >> someone struggle for a word that's on the "tip of their tongue". >> >> >> [†] In particular, if I replace "is the model for" with *generates*, I get >> some sort of Necker cube flipping feeling. >> >> On 12/11/19 11:23 AM, [email protected] wrote: >> > [... the thought experiment being explaining an eraser falling behind a >> book ...] >> > Working through thought-experiments like the one above leads us to >> conclude that all descriptions, particularly satisfying ones, are inevitably >> explanatory and that all explanations are descriptive. And yet, you cannot >> explain something until you have something to explain – so all explanations >> must be based on prior descriptions. The only reasonable conclusion, if you >> take both of these claims at face value, is that all explanations are based >> on prior explanations! The distinction between description and explanation >> concerns their position in an argument, not their objectivity or >> subjectivity in some enduring sense. Whether a statement is explanatory or >> descriptive depends upon the understandings that exist between the speaker >> and his or her audience at the time the statement is made. /Descriptions are >> explanations that the speaker and the audience take to be true for the >> purpose of seeking further explanations/.[1] <#_ftn1> >> >> >> -- >> ☣ uǝlƃ >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >> FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> >> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
